Günther Strahlegger
Lecturer for Diction
strahlegger@mdw.ac.at

"The connection between voice and language, sound and meaning is at the heart of my work as a speaker, singer, speech teacher and language coach. Breathing, inner and outer posture, and mindfulness in pronunciation are particularly important to me. Our speaking voice acts as an acoustic business card and is the number one communication tool. At the same time, we often pay little attention to the beauty of our expression in sound and choice of words and underestimate their effectiveness. My calling is to increase sensitivity and skills in this area."

As a singer, Günther Strahlegger has performed many baritone roles from the classical opera, operetta and concert repertoire at international festivals and on tour, including Figaro in Il barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini), Don Giovanni (Mozart), Escamillo in Carmen (Bizet), the Father in Hänsel und Gretel (Humperdinck), Pappacoda in Eine Nacht in Venedig (Johann Strauss) and Edwin in Die Csárdásfürstin (Kálmán). He sang in the St John Passion and St Matthew Passion (J. S. Bach), in The Creation (Haydn), Grabmusik (Mozart), Carmina Burana (Orff) and Die schöne Magelone (Brahms). 

After completing his training at the Tyrolean State Conservatory in Innsbruck and the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, his first engagements with the Neue Oper Wien sparked his interest in contemporary musical theatre. Several world premieres followed in collaboration with the sirene Operntheater, and in 2020 the opera film Die Verwechslung (Desi/Utz/Tornquist) was created. He is also familiar with historical performance practice, which he first encountered as a choir singer under the musical direction of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and was able to deepen his knowledge of this in productions at the Teatro Barocco Festival – most recently in the summer of 2021 with the world premiere of the melodrama Philon und Theone by Georg Anton Benda.

For 15 years, he has been working as a speech coach for productions at the Vienna Volksoper and the MusikTheater an der Wien. Until 2015, he was a regular contributor to Radio Klassik Stephansdom as a music editor and presenter. He has been teaching speech training and voice training at the Department of Voice and Musical Theatre since 2018.

Translated with www.deepl.com-25.02.2026